


don't worry you and me won't be alone no more

by invalidinthewilds



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Force Visions, M/M, Prophetic Visions, Some Fluff, Some angst, Soulmates, but also not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17233574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invalidinthewilds/pseuds/invalidinthewilds
Summary: The truth is that Luke has been waiting to meet Wedge Antilles his entire life.





	don't worry you and me won't be alone no more

Luke’s fifteen the first time he sees him.

He and this man are standing in some stone corridor and maybe Luke said something funny because this dark-haired man is smiling like he’s happy but there’s pain and sadness there for some reason too.

The man says, “So…” He’s nervous, Luke realizes. “Do you want…?”

“Yes,” Luke says immediately and he can feel himself smiling.

The vision ends and Luke stumbles away from the vaporator he’s been fixing. He’s had these before, names and faces and places to be remembered and then forgotten, but he doesn’t have the slightest idea what they’re supposed to mean. He doesn’t know this man and though he’s had some of the things he’s seen come true—like Biggs crashing out on Beggar’s Canyon—he’s had plenty more which haven’t.

And he knows that others don’t see the things he does. That Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru and Biggs and Windy and Tank and Deak don’t stare into space and see strangely intricate memories that haven’t even occurred and maybe never will.

So he tries to forget about it and goes back to work.

***

A few months later and Luke sees this man again. He knows it’s the same one, not because he remembers his face—because he doesn’t—but because he has the same feeling in his chest. A lightness, a feeling that when this man looks at him Luke could do anything at all. Like a joy that can barely be contained.

The man’s wearing orange and so is Luke, just like last time, except this time they’re in a tunnel that’s blindingly white. The man is talking animatedly about a man named Hobbie and another named Wes and some incident involving both of them, and every time he speaks puffs of white come out of his mouth. Luke is mesmerized, he’s never known that air could do this. And that’s when he realizes that he’s freezing, that he’s never felt so locked up cold than he does in this moment.

The man stops his elaborate story and tilts his head. “You all right, Luke?”

Luke didn’t know anything could ever be this cold. “S-s-sorry. I-I-I’m not used to all this i-ice.”

“I know,” the man says and gives a little grin. “Here.” He pulls Luke’s hands into his, covering them and bringing them to his lips. Luke can feel his warmth breath against his fingertips. The man laughs. “Better?”

“Anyways,” Biggs is saying now. “Laze doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Yeah,” Luke says. He hasn’t heard any of this though they’ve been lying out in the sand for the past twenty minutes, waiting for the others to arrive so they can race. He’s still thinking about that cold place and that man who smiles at him like Luke’s a spring of water after a year of drought.

“You okay?” Biggs asks a moment later. “You’re shaking.”

Luke realizes he is. “I’m just cold.”

Biggs squints against the suns. “You’re _cold_?”

“Yeah,” Luke says. He’s trying to rub some warmth back into his hands. “Just a little.”

***

Luke is seventeen and he’s had many visions of this man, and others, though as of yet he’s seen nothing in reality. Still, it’s no surprise when he gets the sudden image of being on a planet colder than this with the brightest green plants he’s never seen.

What’s surprising is that water is falling on his face.

He knows this is impossible, he’s never heard of such a thing ever happening, but still it blinks down on his eyes and nose and chin.

“ _What_?” he says. “How…how is this happening?”

Laughter behind him. He turns to see him, who’s a stranger, but doesn’t feel like much anymore. “I knew you’d love this,” the man says as Luke brings up a hand to watch the water collect on his palm. In all his life he’s never seen as much water as this. He whispers laughingly into Luke’s ear, “I told you rain exists.”

Rain. The word is a foreign one. Luke doesn’t know what to say. He’s looking at this man and then up to the top of the sky. “It’s so…so…”

“LUKE!”

Luke sits up in his room and realizes his uncle is hollering at him. Which more than likely means he’s been hollering for a while.

“Yes, Uncle Owen?” Luke calls back meekly.

“Get your ass down here! Your aunt’s been calling you to dinner for the past ten minutes!”

Luke scrambles down to the kitchen table to see both his aunt and uncle and a table full of food. “Sorry.”

“Head in the sky,” his uncle grumbles.

“Always thinking,” Aunt Beru smiles and sets a plate of food before him. Luke picks at it, thinking about water on the palm of his hand.

“Aunt Beru?” he says suddenly. He shouldn’t ask what he wants to know. It’s just going to sound stupid.

“Yes?” She always smiles at him, makes him feel like he could ask her anything though he knows for a fact that’s not true.

“Um,” he pushes forward. “Have you ever heard of, you know, water…falling…from the sky?”

“Not likely,” Uncle Owen mutters.

“Well,” Aunt Beru says, carefully, thinking, “I’ve never seen it here. But I’ve read in books that on other planets water _does_ fall from the sky on a regular basis. They called it…I believe they called it…rain.”

Luke goes still. “Rain? You’re sure it was called rain?”

“Yes, I think so.”

This means that what Luke saw had to be true. How else could he know what rain was before having seen it?

Which means that what he saw has to happen. Like Biggs crashing out in Beggar’s Canyon. Like vague visions he’s seen of a man telling him he knew Luke’s father.

His aunt looks at him curiously. “Is there a reason why you’re asking about rain, Luke?”

“Uh, no reason,” he says weakly. Though now that he’s been proven right, however slight, he wants to push for more “Aunt Beru, have you ever thought that…two people…when they love each other…” He doesn’t know how to finish the thought and is embarrassed.

Aunt Beru starts looking concerned. “Luke, do you still have questions? About what adults do? Uncle Owen can talk to you again.”

His uncle looks up in alarm and Luke goes red at what she’s trying to imply. “No. No, no, no. I don’t need…to know about that. I know about that, okay. I was just wondering if you thought two people…can only be meant…for each other.” He sounds absurd.

“Oh.” She sits back. “Well, I always felt like that was a rather fanciful idea. But, you know, your uncle and I are very happy with each other and I can’t imagine being married to anyone else. You know how your uncle and I met, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Luke says again, trying not to roll his eyes. “I know.”

His aunt puts a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe people aren’t meant for each other, but that doesn’t mean we don’t still love them.”

“Yeah,” Luke says but in his mind he’s still thinking about rain. “You’re right.”

***

Luke is eighteen and he’s standing in front of the farm with Uncle Owen looking very close to slapping him across the face.

Part of the problem is that he’s just crashed the skyhopper into more than a few vaporators.

“I’m sorry!” he says. He’s already said sorry a million times and probably will say it a million more before the day is done. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Luke, do you have _any_ idea of what this is going to cost us? What this means for us?”

No, but Luke knows they make barely enough to scrape by as is. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“Well.” His uncle kicks broken pieces of the skyhopper and vaporators. “You can start by cleaning up this mess and maybe by harvest you can help us put in a few new vaporators.”

“But I’ll be gone by harvest,” Luke tentatively states. “You said I could apply to the Academy this harvest.”

His uncle turns away. “You’re not going to the Academy this year, Luke.”

“But you said—”

“That was _before_ you crashed the skyhopper into five vaporators, Luke! I don’t even know if we’ll have enough to eat this year!”

He knows his uncle fears aren’t entirely unreasonable and that they really _have_ just lost a lot of credits, but Luke also feels betrayed and he feels white hot anger like the suns. “This isn’t fair.”

“Well, Luke,” his uncle says flippantly, “life isn’t fair.”

Luke feels the nudge to say something forbidden. “I wish my father were still alive.”

He expects another flippant remark from his uncle but this, strangely, makes his uncle turns to him and give a weird smile. “Well, Luke,” he says in an almost mocking tone, “the galaxy _loves_ to be ironic. Maybe your father’s still alive and has no idea you are. Maybe one day he’ll come here and drag you away and you’ll never see Tatooine again.”

Luke hates this, this mockery of him, this mockery of his dead father, and he doesn’t understand why his uncle is doing this but it only stokes his anger. He blurts out, “And I wish you were the one who was dead!”

“ _Luke_!”

Luke knows immediately that he shouldn’t have said it, it isn’t even true, but he stomps away, rushes back to his room. He can feel tears threaten to spill and he knows this is so completely stupid and he doesn’t even understand why it bothers him so much. But the truth is that while his aunt and uncle might care for him…

They’re not a real family.

He wants a real family.

He wants to be _loved_.

Something blinks into his mind—a vision, a memory, whatever anyone wants to call it. He sees himself in a shuttle and there beside him is his best friend, his lover, whoever he is, with his arms around Luke.

“I love you,” he says. “You and me against the world. Eh, Skywalker?”

“I love you too,” Luke says because he never knew anyone could feel the way he does now. “And always. Always you and me against the world.”

The image fades away and Luke desperately wants to cling to it, to see it again. He’s fully crying now and he doesn’t even care.

He doesn’t know how yet, but he knows he must get off this planet if he meets this man in places where there is green and rain and strange frozen white. And if he meets this man—and he has to believe that this is fact or else he will have nothing—then he knows at some point he’s going to be loved.

It’s not everything but it is enough.

***

So Luke tries to be good. He replaces the vaporators and doesn’t complain that Biggs is going to the Academy and he’s not getting into trouble, at least not too much.

But he still gets that itch to want to _run_ , especially as the days seem to get faster and faster. He’s thinking this is the year he finally gets to go to the Academy, that he can finally relax because he’s succeeded, so instead of doing chores he ends up more and more at Tosche Station.

Deak is explaining a long history of how his family have bravely defended themselves against Tusken Raiders (or something) when Luke sees something else. That dark-haired man and a room that’s unrecognizable.

He can tell immediately, though, that this is not like the other visions, the ones where he feels warmth inside his chest and this other man is smiling. Right now Luke is sitting on the edge of a bed and looking at nothing while the other man paces the length of the room.

“Luke, just talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I can’t.” Luke’s feels the urge to curl away, like if he could rip up the ground and hide in there he would. There’s this terrible heaviness inside of him that he can’t even begin to describe.

The man kneels in front of him, takes Luke’s hands in his. “Is this about Bespin?” he whispers with worry and fear.

Luke recognizes this word, he’s heard it in other visions, though he has no idea what it means and why it always seems to carry weight.

“I can’t,” Luke says again in the vision and the man stands again, pacing.

“Dammit, Luke, _just talk to me_!” he yells and Luke flinches back. Seeing Luke’s distress, the man says softly, “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on.”

_I’m protecting you!_ Luke wants to scream for some reason. But he doesn’t say this. “I can’t,” he repeats again and again and again. “ _I can’t_.”

“Fine.” The man before him seems to have come to a decision. “Fine. Don’t tell me. You can keep all your thoughts and all your visions and all your memories. You don’t need me.”

“No, please,” Luke says but the man’s already gone and Luke’s collapsing and heaving sobs—

“Wormie.” Something’s flicking Luke’s head. It’s Deak. “Wormie, you’re staring into space again.”

Luke flicks right back. “No I wasn’t and stop with that stupid name.”

“Whatever you say. Wormie.”

Luke scowls, and at more than just Deak. He’s always seen these future memories as a comfort, as a reminder that things would get better.

That he would be loved.

And now it looks like it will all fall apart.

Everything has downsides. He hasn’t seen everything. Everything could work out fine.

He still worries about this the rest of the afternoon.

In a few weeks, he has more important things to worry about.

***

Luke lands at Yavin 4 both excited and tired and wanting to stay awake and wanting to sleep forever. He knows they’ll be seeing combat soon and he’s already volunteered and it’s so strange that days ago he thought he’d never leave and now he wonders if his life will ever be quiet again.

“We’ll get you acquainted with the pilots and the X-wings,” Leia is saying. “I’ll hand you over to Wedge. Wedge!” she calls across the room and a dark-haired man runs over, smiling at both of them.

And Luke can tell when he is only halfway there. This is the man. This is the man from his visions. This is the man who promises Luke the world. This is the man he fights with.

He’s real.

“Hey,” the man says. Wedge. He said his name was Wedge. All these years and Luke has never had a name to pin his face. He can hear the echo of all his visions at once, repeating the name back in his head. “I’m Wedge Antilles.”

He offers a hand to shake and Luke has to forcibly remind himself to raise his hand too. They shake hands for a few moments before Wedge prompts, “And you are…?”

Oh. Oh, stupid. “I’m Luke Skywalker,” Luke squeaks. “I’m from, uh, Tatooine.”

Why did he say that? He sounds like an idiot. “Nice to meet you,” Wedge grins. “Quite frankly I couldn’t care less where you’re from. We need the pilots.”

“Yeah.” Leia’s already left and Luke hasn’t even noticed. He’s trailing after Wedge with awe or horror or some strange fascination at whatever’s inside him that can do this. If only Ben had told him…

Wedge stops. “You’re sure about this?” he says suddenly, very seriously, and Luke almost thinks he can read thoughts.

“Um…about…what?”

“Going into combat.”

Oh. That. “Yeah. Yes. I’m sure.”

“This isn’t a thing to be taken lightly.”

“I know,” Luke says, trying to temper his enthusiasm, “I know it’s not, Wed—er, what should I call you?”

He wants to call him Wedge so bad.

“Wedge is fine.”

He tries to keep his smile to himself.

***

Luke realizes later that he was lying when he said he understood the seriousness of combat. Because in that moment when he was staring at Wedge Antilles, he never expected that hours later he would be the last of a ragged team. Running in a trench against a massive army that never seems to get tired, much less die.

He doesn’t think much longer on it because something bangs behind him and he feels another press of fear, expecting death to finally snatch him away. But nothing happens.

“I’m hit,” comes Wedge’s distorted voice through the comms. “I can’t stay with you.”

_No, you have to stay_ , Luke almost says. He needs a buffer between him and any enemies if he wants to make it to the exhaust port. But.

If Wedge stays he’s going to die.

“Get clear, Wedge,” Luke says immediately. “You can’t do any more good back there.”

“Sorry,” Wedge says and his fighter disappears. No TIEs follow him and for that Luke breathes a tiny sigh of relief.

Then he only has time to focus on the mission at hand.

***

The celebration after the Death Star is long and loud, despite the many people they’ve just lost. Or maybe that’s the exact reason why it’s loud. Something has to drown out the loss.

Luke likes it at first but eventually all he feels is tiredness and pain and sorrow. He’s leaning against the wall, alone, his eyes roving over everyone else.

And like he’s done since he’s first met him—really met him—Luke glances over at Wedge who’s on the other side of the room, who is also standing against a wall alone, drinking.

His stomach twists. He feels like letting Wedge live has caused him to tamper with something deep, something he doesn’t fully understand, and it terrifies him. He feels guilt too, that by saving Wedge he sacrificed Biggs.

Wedge glances over at him, and before Luke can shift his eyes away Wedge stands and walks towards him.

And then, of all times, Luke is hit by a vision of pure anger and he must have just said something terrible because Wedge says in an infuriatingly calm voice, “You always acted like a child, Luke. That’s something I hated about you from the day we first met.”

Everything he says cuts Luke deep and Luke is flailing for anything that will hurt as much in response. “You’re the one acting like a child. This is still some stupid spat about Bespin.”

“This is a fight about you. Because everything is a fight with you and I get enough of that with the Empire. I’m done.”

_If he leaves he’s never coming back_ , some part of him screams.

“You’re just going to leave?” Luke says desperately. He knows he sounds desperate. He doesn’t care. “Run away like…like…”

And Luke suddenly remembers the worst knife to twist into Wedge’s gut.

“Like you did on the Death Star? Just run away like the coward you are?”

Luke realizes instantly that, like with his uncle, he’s gone too far. Guilt immediately plays out on Wedge’s face and he stumbles back, as if Luke really has struck a knife between his ribs.

There’s nothing Luke can say now that will make this right. Nothing will ever make Wedge want to come back when he’s said this.

Wedge looks at him and he expects fury or a sharp word. He deserves it. But Wedge just stares at him. It’s like he’s replaying every memory they ever had. It’s like he’s trying to memorize Luke’s face.

He says, “Goodbye, Luke.”

“Hey, Luke,” Wedge says now, having already crossed the room, and Luke is reeling back. He can’t take all the memories and the visions. He knows far too much and too little.

“Hey,” Luke somehow manages.

“Never was much for parties,” Wedge says. He raises the bottle in his hand. “But I suppose the whiskey’s always all right. You want some?”

“Uh huh.” Luke’s going to need some if he’s dealing with this any longer. He takes the bottle and downs a swig…and then comes back up spluttering.

Wedge laughs. “First time drinking Corellian whiskey, huh?”

“First time for everything,” Luke coughs, trying to keep some of his dignity.

“Fair,” Wedge says and takes a gulp himself. “Well, I was a bit younger than you the first time I tried it and…” he trails off. “Sorry, am I bothering you? Maybe you want to be alone.”

“No,” Luke says immediately. He looks up at Wedge. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Luke can see the exact moment Wedge’s eyes light up, the want threading its way through the black of his eyes. Luke’s never been wanted by anybody in his entire life.

“You…you want get out of here?” Wedge asks.

Luke says, “I would love that.”

So Wedge takes his hand and they tumble out of the corridor, laughing and pretending they have to hide whenever someone walks by. Luke takes a few more gulps of the whiskey until he feels like the Hero of Yavin everybody thinks he is.

“In here,” Wedge says and tugs him into a corridor. And Luke knows this is the corridor from his very first memory, this is where something sparks between them, and his heart is beating wildly.

Wedge is still laughing, his face flushed. He’s got a finger to his lips and he’s whispering, “They’ll never find us here.”

He’s looking at Luke with happiness but there’s pain and sorrow in there too. Luke knows this already. He knows what Wedge looks like when he laughs or when he’s trying not to cry or when he wants to lop someone’s head off being an idiot. He knows Wedge mumbles in his sleep, that he hates anything that isn’t tidy, that he has a way of interlocking his fingers that means he’s terrified of what’s going to happen next.

Luke knows all this but it’s going to be meaningless in the end.

He doesn’t have to do this. In a few moments, Luke could decline, could say Wedge got the wrong idea, could say it was stress and grief. He could stop both of them from wasting their time and only Luke will ever know what could have been.

Wedge is nervous. “So…” he says. “Do you want…?”

“Yes,” Luke says instantly. He smiling, and before he even knows what he’s doing, he’s rushing forward and kissing him.

And Wedge just so happens to kiss him back.


End file.
